MR. WATT'S STATUE-TURNING MACHINE. 339 



and in order that they might return again without injuring 

 the fabric, the barb or eye of the needle, which resembled 

 the barb of a fishing hook, was shut by a slider. The 

 muslin web then took a new position by means of the 

 machinery that gave it its horizontal and vertical motion, 

 so that the sixty needles penetrated it, at their next move- 

 ment, at another point of the figure or flower. This 

 operation went on till sixty flowers were completed. The 

 web was then slightly wound up, that the needles might 

 be opposite that part of it on which they were to work 

 another row of flowers. 



The flowers were generally at an inch distance, and the 

 rows were placed so that the flowers formed what are 

 called diamonds. There were seventy-two rows of flowers 

 in a yard, so that in every square yard there were nearly 

 4000 flowers, and in every piece of ten yards long 40,000. 

 The number of loops or stitches in a flower varied with 

 the pattern, but on an average there was about thirty. 

 Hence the number of stitches in a yard was 120,000, and 

 the number in a piece was 1,200,000. The average work 

 done in a week by one machine was fifteen yards, or 

 60,000 flowers, or 1,800,000 stitches, and by comparing 

 this with the work done by one person with the hand, it 

 appeared that the machine enabled one person to do the 

 work of twenty-four persons. 



One of the most curious and important applications of 

 machinery to the arts which has been suggested in modern 

 times was made by the late Mr. Watt, in the construction 

 of a machine for copying or reducing statues and sculp- 

 ture of all kinds. The art of multiplying busts and 

 statues, by casts in plaster of Paris, has been the means 

 of diffusing a knowledge of this branch of the fine arts ; 

 but from the fragile nature of the material, the copies 

 thus produced were unfit for exposure to the weather, and 

 therefore ill calculated for ornamenting public buildings, 



